Nothing is more tedious and unpleasant than having to force yourself up from the coach to start the regular weekly cleaning on a lazy weekend afternoon. Somehow, the more reluctant you are to begin with the chores, the harder it is to get down to business and finish everything off in no time. The question that has been bothering me over the last few days is how to trick myself to get in the mood for cleaning.

The time for experiments has come. Naturally, you can do a little research by searching the Internet for suggestions, inspirational quotes and etc. but, really, how much more fun it is to challenge yourself to figure out how to find your inner cleaning Nazi. After all, you know yourself best and only you can motivate yourself to the fullest. Still, in case you can’t figure out where to begin with, here are some good practices, suggested by the cleaning gurus of Docklands:

Bribe Yourself

Let’s face it – the good old bribe can take you a long way. How can you bribe yourself? If you can tempt yourself with something you have desired for long time, who could? It’s easy set a target like doing the fall cleaning this weekend – the windows must be cleaned, the garage – organized, the leaves in the yard – swept away, the attic – de-cluttered, every room in the house – deep cleaned. Should you succeed with the difficult task at hand, you get to spend the next weekend at the SPA retreat, you have been postponing for so long.

Don’t know about you but I, for once, am all for the challenge when the price is so fabulous!

Exercise

Remember how you always planned to do a major workout at least on the weekends when you had spare time? Yes, that very same workout you never actually got around to actually do. Combine cleaning and exercising to get them both off your To-Do list. It is fairly easy to add a few extra movements to your regular cleaning routine to re-shape it into a great physical exercise.

Listen to an Audio Book

You love books but never have the time to linger with the endless pages, to loose yourself in the storyline, until you devour the entire novel? You can do most of the cleaning while listening to an audio book. First of all, this will distract you from concentrating solely on how much work you have to finish. Secondly, you will have finally found that precious time to “read” the book you have been planning to for at least a month.